• Daniel@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    TL;DR: The article claims that the Brave web browser is bad and should not be used.

    The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage. Along with making the claim that Brave’s goal is not to act as an ad-blocker, but instead to build and grow their own advertisement network, and he also believes that the network has several flaws:

    • Brave Ads paysout in a form of cryptocurrency, called BAT (🦇).
    • As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatility.
    • BAT can not be redeemed for fiat (“actual”) money directly from within the Brave Wallet.
    • The author also believes that “it [the network] has largely failed” but that it “has generated a lot of revenue for Brave,” via the ICO (Initial Coin Offering; IPO for crypto).

    In addition to these key points the author also:

    • Claims that Brave prompted FTX, before the scandal.
    • Cites the The Brave Marketer Podcast where ex-CMO of Crypto.com Steven Kalifowitz shares an ambitious goal of being a “‘brand like Coke and Netflix.’” The author then mentions that:
      • In 2023 there was a report from The Financial Times that Crypto.com traded against their customers.
      • In 2022 the company try to hide the severity of its layoffs.
    • Mentions Brave’s integration with Gemini, and how the crypto exchange is under investigation for lying about FDIC insurance.
    • Mentions a partnership with the the 3XP Web3 Gaming Expo where they sponsored the Esports Arena and rewarded contestants with the BAT token.
    • Claims that Brave added affiliate/referral codes to URLs, such as “binance.us.”

    Finally, the author lists Firefox and Vivaldi as alternatives to Brave, and ends the article with “Brave Browser is irredeemable, and you should not use it under any circumstances.”

    I am human, please let me know if I’ve made a mistake.

    Edit: Fixed bat emoji and typo.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The author points out that Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founder (and ex-CEO) of Mozilla, and founder of Brave, donated 1,000 USD in support of a proposition to ban same-sex marriage.

      My impression was Brave got started after he got hoofed out of Mozilla or left on his own accord after the backlash for showing his ass to be a homophobe. Redditor types were of course very angry about this blatant disregard for frozen peaches and jumped onto his new venture in droves

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      As BAT is a cryptocurrency there is high volatilability (I don’t know if I spelled that right :/ ).

      Volatility :-)

    • PopcornTin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If he’s bad, shouldn’t everything he touches be bad? Why web site that uses JavaScript should be just as bad. Any browser based on Mozilla should be bad. Why is it just Brave that’s bad for what he did in 2008?

      • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
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        1 year ago

        As I understand it, the argument isn’t so much “if you use a thing made by a bad person, you are a bad person by association” but rather that using a commercial product made by a bad person, who spends his money on bad causes, is directly helping him spend more money on said bad causes. Since he has never apologized or shown any indication that he has become a better person, not wanting to monetarily support him is a valid reason to not use his product.

      • escapesamsara@discuss.online
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        1 year ago

        It’s really hard for the creator of Javascript to make money off of javascript, and it’s unlikely he has any financial interest in the Mozilla corporation anymore since they’re a nonprofit and thus don’t have share holders. However, he directly profits off of Brave.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Brave Software, the company behind the browser of the same name, was founded by Brendan Eich. He’s best known as the creator of JavaScript from his days at Netscape Communications

    Say no more fam.

  • jabberati@social.anoxinon.de
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    1 year ago

    @whou Don’t forget the time they made it possible to ‘donate’ to creators, but when creators weren’t signed up with their program #Brave would just keep the donation. So users would think they have donated for example to Tom Scott, but in reality he never received anything. Overall just a scummy company.

  • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The fact is i don’t care about these things. All it matters is that Brave uses Chromium, therefore I’ll never touch it.

    • Neutron Star@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      plus they have Google Advert ID Permission in Android. Tell me who is more creep. Crypto-things can be disabled within a few clicks, While mozilla’s trash can be disabled using a bunch of configuration in about:config

  • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I don’t see any of this as legitimate reasons to stop using Brave.

    • yes the CEO donated $1k some 10 years ago to anti-LGBT stuff, and that’s bad, but kinda small fries in the totality of factors.

    • ads. Firefox has ads and trackers just like Brave. You can disable them on either.

    • you can also disable crypto.

    • hijacking affiliate codes is unethical and should be stopped but don’t actually affect me in any way.

    What else ya got?

    • iByteABit [he/him]@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I don’t usually judge by looks, but you can just tell that Brendan Eich is an insecure fragile person with many mental problems.

      I don’t know what’s worse: The whole anti same-sex marriage deal or inventing Javascript.

      Probably Javascript…

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Oh he’s THAT guy?!

        Fuck that guy. He basically is the reason popups was so damn widespread.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          JavaScript is also the whole reason that the web is interactive. Without JavaScript the web would be mostly just static pages without any client side dynamic behavior.

          Brendan Eich is a tool, but JavaScript is a useful tool, at least.

          • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            I think I’d prefer a mostly static web. Guess I should finally check out ublock origins medium mode or whatever its called.

  • drathvedro@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Please stop reposting this crap every fucking day. What’s up with you and this exact article in particular anyway? Are you getting paid or something?

    • whou@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      well, I just came across the article on Mastodon and wanted to share it. I mean jeez, imagine sharing and wanting to discuss interesting topics just for fun?

      and I posted the article on !technology@beehaw.org and then cross-posted it here, because I thought it was also an interesting community to discuss it. I saw a bunch of people cross-posting it elsewhere, so if you’re seeing it a bunch of times then it’s probably because those communities probably also have something in common with the article. I personally think every community have different people and different discussions to have, so I don’t see it as particularly bad.

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    To be honest the best chromium based browser I’ve used (when I’m forced to use a chromium based browser) is the Samsung internet one. It has a dark mode that actually works and protects my vampire eyes lol.

    Never used brave because I heard all of the scammy ad network and crypto stuff years ago, immediately put me off it. Now learning that the creator probably hates me, it’s just another reason not to touch it.

  • FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    did not know about the founder’s past, cheers for this. whenever i’m forced to open a chromium browser for something from now on, i’ll be using vivaldi.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      1 year ago

      Is Vivaldi good? I’ve heard it’s like the old Opera, which I used to love (I used Opera from 2003 until around when they switched to Chromium, 2012ish)

      • FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        i like vivaldi a lot :) mostly because of its UI and extremely easy in-depth customization. in my opinion it is the greatest-looking web browser (if you don’t factor in all the css fiddling you can do in a text editor with firefox, of course. but even then i don’t recall seeing any custom firefox user style that looked better than vivaldi to me).

        the reason why i switched away from vivaldi and back to firefox after ~2 years of straight usage was that vivaldi had a weird performance bug for me where if i had too many tabs open for too many days in a row (laptop, no shutdown), it would randomly start freezing and i’d have to restart it. but when it was running on a fresh start, it was amazing. also the more ethical choice of using a non-chromium browser was part of the reason

  • Lafuma300@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No. Couldn’t care less what the founder did or didn’t do. We need as many non-Google browsers as possible. The problem with Brave is that it is a chromium browser.

    • JoYo 🇺🇸@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      no one wants to secure their web render so they’ll always use whatever is native to the platform.

      on windows that’s chromium. on macos that’s webkit.

          • crazycaveman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Chromium isn’t native to Windows. iOS is the only OS (I’m aware of) where browsers are forced to use a specific engine, but even that will be changing

              • crazycaveman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                No, I’m not. Chromium doesn’t exist in Windows unless you install a program that includes it. Chromium web engine is “native” to the chromium web browser, not to any OS (except maybe ChromeOS). As espi mentioned, Internet explorer’s mshtml is the only engine “native” to Windows. Just look at the Opera browser, they changed web engines from Presto to chromium; that’s not using “what’s native to the platform” (Opera works across all OS’s with chromium, except for iOS for the restriction I mentioned before), it’s using what the developers/company want to use to render their pages. Nothing in Windows itself provides any of the chromium engine “pieces”

                • zysarus@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  This was true until Edge transitioned to Chromium. Now the natively installed browser in Windows is Chromium based.

                • JoYo 🇺🇸@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Edge is using EMET for memory protections.

                  Chrome has EMET disabled because it’s own memory protections conflict and it just won’t execute.

                  When you’re make a web view for Windows you’re either bringing a long your own rendering or using Edge because it’s included.

                  No one wants to secure their own rendering which is why they all use whatever is already there which is EMET which is a pita to test so they just go with Edge.

                  native is just jargon for “what is already there.”

      • Espi@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        What does this even mean. Chromium or Webkit are not “native” to an OS. OSs don’t magically include browser engines, its not a critical component of an OS either.

        Most OSs do come with browsers preinstalled, but they are programs just like any other. You can remove Safari from macOS (albeit its pretty hard because root is read only and signed), you can remove Edge from Windows. In my desktop with Windows 10 the only browser I have is Firefox (not even Edge), does that make Gecko the “native” browser engine?

        If anything, the native browser engine for Windows would be MSHTML from Internet Explorer.

  • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    These are pretty unconvincing reasons to tell people to stop using brave…